Am I good enough?

Songwriting is a beautiful and magical thing. But sometimes it’s also deeply frustrating and at times even painful. For some people it’s a hobby and for others it’s a career.

But no matter where we are on the journey as songwriters, we have to consider certain aspects of our craft. We should always seek those wonderful moments when our work feels free and creative, and everything seems to be flowing from a mysterious source through us.

In my experience this hasn’t always been the case though. But how do we get better at inviting this state of flow into our lives as songwriters? What’s stopping us?

One common challenge I’ve frequently encountered in my 20+ years as a music educator is what I call the "I am not good enough" Syndrome.

This is an extremely common human condition, affecting most of us to varying degrees.

Many of us have an idea that we’re somehow deeply flawed as individuals, incapable of achieving our goals and dreams due to our perceived inadequacies. This belief is, of course, untrue. We are all perfectly imperfect human beings, with both beauty and ugliness inherent in our nature. Setting aside debates about genetics versus environment, I’m sure we also possess a free will and the capacity to make choices that steer our lives in certain directions. This is an interesting philosophical and biological discussion, but how does it relate to songwriting?

The fact that you sometimes believe yourself to be worthless (you’re not!) is actually besides the point here. Instead, we need to take a moment to understand ourselves and our abilities a little bit better. Get a more precise image of what we can and cannot do. We should view ourselves from the perspective of a loving, caring, and emotionally healthy adult. If we weren't taught this perspective from an early age (I wasn't), we may require someone to help us gain this outlook. This could be a therapist, a friend who knows how to listen non-judgmentally (these are very rare), or perhaps even a songwriting teacher, who have done all of this work already :-)

What we gain from this perspective is a more realistic image of our songwriting skills and an end to automatic self-criticism. For many years, I struggled with my lyric-writing abilities, and sometimes I still do. I used to say, “I suck at writing lyrics." However, we should be very cautious with our language and our self-talk, as repeated negative statements can become self-fulfilling prophecies. I no longer use such language to describe my abilities, and if I do slip up after all, I correct my thoughts from the standpoint of that healthy, caring adult I mentioned earlier. Yes, there's likely a lot we can improve upon, and the more we learn, the more we realize how vast the universe of potential knowledge is. But I no longer scream at myself for not knowing all of it.

This healthy adult process led me to establish a much more sensible learning structure for acquiring the skills I needed. I began analyzing my favorite lyrics, invested in several well-regarded books on the topic (and read most of them!), and, most importantly, spent a lot of time writing lyrics, practicing, and experimenting until it became easier, more enjoyable, and fun.

So, my cure for "I am not good enough" Syndrome is a generous dose of self-compassion and big pinch of healthy adult, enabling me to assess things realistically. You’re not the world's best songwriter, but for sure, you're also not the worst. Identify the areas in which you want to improve in as a songwriter and create a plan for working on and practicing those skills. It's as simple as that, but it requires us to take action and this a whole other story that we’ll talk about at later time.

If you'd like to dive deeper into this concept, I recommend listening to the Mel Robbins podcast on goal setting. I also want to mention the author Steven Pressfield who has written some wonderful books on creativity, where he explores the resistance we experience as creatives.

Be mindful though. This approach won't work if you're not genuinely committed to doing the work. We need to do the work and we need to want to do the work. And if we want to make songwriting as fun and rewarding as possible, we need to be adults about it and practice the right things.

Being someone who has really struggled with all of this throughout my professional career as an artist and songwriter, I can help you with these concepts and I can also help you diagnose where you need to focus your energy, to be exactly the songwriter and artist you want to be.